


Learning Systems

by thought



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 21:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13199289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thought/pseuds/thought
Summary: Then it's 9:00 PM and you're holding a gun on your commanding officer.So. There's that.





	Learning Systems

**Author's Note:**

> Still not convinced 1000 words is long enough for AO3 but here we are I guess

Working for SI-5 is like-- no. It's not like anything. Working for SI-5 is unique and horrific and incredible and it's

sitting in the back of a rented car at 3:00 PM, knit scarf drawn up around your face and trying to focus on the trees in the pseudo-twilight of midwinter as they rush past to the exclusion of everything else. You've been in more cars in the last eight months than you have the last eight years and your body has decided to betray you with unpredictable bouts of motion sickness. Your legs are stretched out across the seat so you can tuck your face into the corner where the seat meets the window. In the front, Kepler's trying to drag Jacobi into a game of twenty questions, but Jacobi's too focused on the icy highway and the failing heater.

"we're getting our money back," he says.

"It's not an animal," Kepler says. And then: "I got the car with American Express points."

"Can I blow it up?" Jacobi asks. "Or will that fuck up your credit or something?"

You breathe in the faint sent of Kepler's shampoo left on the scarf and count each click of the speedometer as the miles hiss past. There's Christmas music playing on the radio and it makes you want to cry. Old associations. You thought you'd gotten past this. Network paths that should have been deleted years ago.

The highway is long and you make it through two states before you hit Montana. Then it's gas station coffee and picking out the red MMs and an aerial map on your laptop screen, the three of you crowded close around the hotel room desk. Easy target. Easy job.

"It's a Christmas miracle."

"shut up, Jacobi."

Then it's 9:00 PM and you're holding a gun on your commanding officer.

So. There's that.

"Think very carefully about your choices, Doctor," Kepler says.

"I am," you lie. Your hand doesn't shake. This, at least, is familiar, more than anything else Goddard has presented you with. Point. Shoot. Easy.

"Alana," Jacobi says. He's still holding the explosives, goggles pushed up on his forehead like either of you are going to make eye contact with each other.

"I won't let you," you say. Kepler might kill you for this. You've weighed the probabilities and found them acceptable.

"It's not your place to make that call," Kepler says. Inside the laboratory, three white-coated scientists are huddled under a desk, watching the three of you through the glass like your mother watched the stained glass image of Jesus in the church windows, sometimes.

"The hell it isn't," you say.

"Ok," Kepler says, like he's humouring you. You want to shoot him just for that. You could. At this moment, you could. It's exhilarating. More so than it should be. You all carry weapons. You're a better shot than he is. "Let's go inside."

"What," says Jacobi.

"Ok," you say.

You go inside. You shoot one of the scientists. Kepler shoots the other two.

"What?" Jacobi says, again, but he makes sure you know it's a question.

You pull the hard drives out of the computers. No time for finesse. Kepler still might kill you for this.

"Ok," you say. "Ok. Now we can blow it up."

"Can we?" Kepler says. "How *very* generous of you, Dr. Maxwell. Mr. Jacobi, if you would?"

"Sure," says Jacobi. You put your gun away and walk out fast, boots crunching through the snow, sharply aware of Kepler behind you.

The explosion goes off the same time he slams you against the side of the car. You curl yourself protectively in around the hard drives but your jaw impacts the side mirror hard and you lose a few seconds to a numb sort of shock before the pain hits.

"Give me," Kepler murmurs, "two good reasons not to leave your body here to freeze until springtime."

"The information on these hard drives will move the decision-making capabilities of AI forward by at least ten years," you say, immediately.

"and?"

"Five years," you say. "Do you really want to throw away half of your work over one little disagreement?"

He kicks your legs out from under you and you land in the grimy snow hard. Something in your shoulder pops sickeningly.

"Do we need to go over the whisky speech again?"

"Nah, I think I've got it."

"Jesus," Jacobi says from somewhere above you. "Sir."

"Did you ever consider," Kepler demands, and he's getting louder now, "that there is a good reason Goddard didn't want those files recovered?"

"Of course!" you say. "Why do you think I needed to recover them?"

Kepler is silent. After a minute you push yourself up, legs shaky with pain, and fall into the backseat of the car. Jacobi and Kepler exchange words you can't hear through the car door, then get in.

Nobody says anything on the way to the hotel. The Christmas music is still playing. You wonder if this will be enough to create new pathways.

Later, Jacobi says, "I thought you didn't want us to kill the scientists. I thought that's why you-- yeah."

"I knew what I was getting in to when I signed the job offer," you lie. Jacobi pops your shoulder back into place and you drink the whole waterglass of cheap vodka instead of screaming.

"You can't do that," he says, like an older brother you never asked for. "That was too far."

In the warm, bright lights of the hotel room you think you're starting to realize this. "He hired me to advance artificial intelligence," you say, instead. "Not to follow orders unquestioningly."

"Yeah, sure," says Jacobi, flatly. You don't know what he's thinking and it bothers you more than you expect.

"I thought," you say, "you would stop me. I thought your loyalty to Kepler outweighed everything else."

"You wanted me to stop you," he says. "Sorry. No checks and balances here."

"Does it bother you?" you ask, curious. "When we kill people who don't deserve it?"

"Not anymore," he says, and you wish the glass of vodka was still full. You've always assumed he was more like you.

The next morning Kepler says "I expect a full report on everything you found."

"Yes, sir."

He watches you across the geometric bedspread, hands braced on the suitcase that you and Jacobi share. He lets the silence drag out for a couple minutes, and when he says "If you ever do something like that again I will kill you," you believe him.


End file.
